Kathleen O'Brien - Texas Trouble

“No. It’s okay. She never wakes up. I’m not going back yet.”

Logan looked at the boy, who clearly had amazing persistence and dogged determination in that stubborn jaw.

He did some quick thinking. He didn’t want to spook the kid. If Sean decided to dart off into the night, in that outfit, Logan would have hell’s own time trying to catch him. He was tired, and barefoot, and about twenty years older than Sean. He didn’t like his chances.

“Okay.” He held open the door. “Want to come in, then?”

Sean hesitated, still frowning. He glanced into the lighted great room, as if he were checking for trap doors and cages.

“Hey, suit yourself,” Logan said, chuckling. Kids were so dumb. Sean had snuck out in the middle of the night, wandered the darkness alone, knocked on a stranger’s door, then suddenly started remembering what Mom said about safety first.

He shrugged. “I have all the snotty kid prisoners I need at the moment, anyhow.”

Sean laughed. It was an awkward, sputtering noise, as if he hadn’t expected to, and hadn’t wanted to. He caught himself and cut it off, but it had undoubtedly been a laugh.

Encouraged, Logan opened the door wider, and ambled casually toward the kitchen. “Want some water? Must have been a dusty ride. Did you come the back way, by the creek?”

Behind him, he heard the door shut softly. Then he heard it open again, and once more click shut. Too funny…the kid must have been testing to make sure it didn’t auto-lock.

The soft slap of sneakers followed him to the kitchen. Then Sean spoke, with the belligerence dialed back a notch. “Water would be very nice. Yeah, I came by the creek. It’s nice in the moonlight.”

Logan slid a filled glass across the countertop. “But it’s a long way. And I’m guessing that if you get caught you’re in a boatload of trouble. What do you want so bad you’re willing to come all this way to get it?”

Sean picked up the water and swallowed about half of it before he answered. “I want the bird,” he said. “I was going to go to the center and poke around till I found it, but that seemed babyish.”

He lifted his small, pale chin. The hood dropped off when he did so, exposing his curly red hair, still sweaty from the ride over. “And I’m not a baby. So I decided I’d come ask you for it. You can’t want it. It’s not worth anything.”

In spite of the absurdity of the situation, Logan felt a stirring of respect. The boy’s behavior didn’t make any sense, and he could definitely use an attitude adjustment.

But that didn’t make it any less brave.

“I’m not sure I understand. What bird?”

“The one I brought over here yesterday.”

“The dead one?”

The scowl appeared again. “It wasn’t dead when I left my house. It flew right into my window, and then it couldn’t fly anymore. I thought maybe you could fix it. But I guess I took too long. When I got here, it was already dead.” His fingertips were white where they gripped the glass. “I…I couldn’t believe it. It just wasn’t breathing.”

Logan watched the boy carefully, recognizing that helpless anger, that bewildered impotence in the face of the implacability of mortality. If he’d had any doubts before about Sean’s culpability in the death of the bird, they vanished now.

“I guess that was a pretty bad moment. When you saw that it was too late.”

“Yeah.” Sean had to take a deep breath to stop his voice from quavering. “Yeah, it was. I wanted to save it. Maybe it was even my fault. Maybe if I’d asked my mom to drive me over—”

“No.” Logan couldn’t allow that thought to exist for a single second. “No. If it flew into your window, it probably broke its neck. No matter how fast you got it here, I couldn’t have saved it, either.”

“Okay.” Sean nodded, staring down at his water. “But your manager took it away from me. I don’t want him just thrown in the trash, you know? I want to bury him. But I don’t want to steal him. I shouldn’t have to. He’s mine.”

He lifted his head and stood ramrod straight. All the regal Archer entitlement was in that bearing, but so was the little boy’s fear and confusion. Those angry eyes were shining with unshed tears. The effect was incongruous, and oddly touching.

“So I thought I’d come over here and ask you straight. Will you let me have his body?”

Goddamn it. For a minute Logan felt his own eyes stinging. Damn it. He was not going to actually go soft over this kid and one silly bird. Birds died on him all the time in the sanctuary. No one wept over it, not even the most naive teenage volunteers.

“I can’t,” he said firmly. Facts were facts. “I’m sorry, but at least I can promise you it wasn’t thrown in the trash. We’ve already incinerated the body. We have to do that to all the birds we lose here at Two Wings. It’s the law.”

“Oh.” Sean bit his lips together, dealing with the disappointment. His throat worked a few seconds as he fought for control. “Why?”

He really seemed to want to know. Logan debated with himself for a second—would it be better to gloss over it, or offer up details as a distraction?

He decided on distraction. He simplified, but he laid out the basic setup, the federal laws that governed rehabbers and sanctuaries like Two Wings. Encouraged by Sean’s absorbed attention, he even included some interesting trivia about how hunters used to kill birds by the thousands because women wanted to wear their elegant nesting plumage in their ridiculous hats.

“There was a period, maybe a hundred years ago, when an ounce of ostrich feathers was worth more than an ounce of gold,” he finished up. “So the government passed laws to protect the birds. We aren’t allowed to keep so much as a single feather.”

The stories, and the time it took to tell them, did the trick. By the time Logan was finished, Sean’s eyes were brighter. The lightening of his fog of unhappiness was palpable. He probably didn’t fully understand most of it, but he was clearly fascinated by the brief glimpse of the rich history of bird lore.

Logan looked him over, above the rim of his own water glass. When Sean stopped all that glowering, he was a fairly nice-looking kid.

“Anyhow, I really should get you home now,” Logan said casually, hoping he wouldn’t rekindle the fire. “Think we can get your bike in the back of my truck?”

Sean nodded reluctantly. Whatever adrenaline had pushed him here was fading now that his anger and tension were gone. He was starting to look like a normal, sleepy little boy.

“Thanks,” Sean said. “Thanks for being so nice to me.”

And then, to Logan’s surprise, Sean suddenly thrust out his hand. Logan took it, feeling the fragile bones in the skinny fingers, and the calluses on his fingertips. The hand felt ridiculously small to be offering such a man’s gesture.

“You’re welcome,” Logan said, but he had to clear his throat to get the words out.

“I won’t bother you any more, Mr. Cathcart.” The boy looked him straight in the eye. “I’m sorry I lost my temper yesterday and messed up your cages. I wish I could do something to take it back.”

Logan felt himself being drawn into those hazel eyes, so round and so much like his mother’s. He was no psychiatrist, but his instincts told him this kid wasn’t crazy, or mean, or bad. He was just hurting like hell.

Oh, man. Logan felt himself about to say something he’d probably regret. Pull back, Cathcart. Think it through.

Remember the attitude. The flash of temper. The tragedy, hanging like a black wing over everything the boy did. Remember that half his DNA was from his dad, who had always been a jerk, and had ended up a head case.

Everything he’d told himself yesterday was still true. He still had too much to do. He still knew Nora’s sex appeal would be a distraction, an itch he could never scratch.